#SciFund Challenge: Hey! Did you miss that fish?

#SciFund is a month-and-a-half long initiative to raise funds for a variety of scientific research projects. Project leaders post a project description and an appeal for funds, and members of the public are invited to make small donations to projects that they deem worthy. Donations come with rewards such as access to project logs, images from fieldwork, your name in the acknowledgements of publications, among other possibilities. Many of these projects are marine or conservation themed. Over the next week, we’ll highlight some of our favorites. Please take a look at these projects and, should you so desire, send some financial support their way. If you do make a donation, let them know how you found out about their project and leave a comment (anonymous if you’d like) on this post letting us know.

Jarrett Byrnes, the legendary blogger from I’m a Chordata, Urochodata, is interested in understanding how global change affects our oceans. He has access to an enormous, unprecedented data set from 30 years of fish surveys around the Channel Islands. There’s just one problem. This data set has been produced over 30 years by many different ecologists, in a host of different environmental conditions. There’s a error rate associated with it.

Jarrett has a solution, and that solution is calculating the calibration rate for the data set by sending divers out to perform repeated samplings of the same area, and then use that data to determine the error rate associated with marine surveys. I really like this projects because it involves publically available, open access data, and has the potential to unlock a monumental data set which can then be used to understand the changes that have occurred over the last 30 years. Go take a look at his project page and help out if you can.